"In fiction, the principles are given, to find the facts: in history, the facts are given, to find the principles; and the writer who does not explain the phenomena as well as state them performs only one half of his office."

The long wait is over. Although the official announcement is not
expected until sometime next week, sources inside the Amherst College
administration revealed that, after months of controversy and
speculation, they have chosen poet Emily Dickinson as their new sports
mascot, replacing eighteenth-century British military leader Lord
Jeffery Amherst, considered by many to be politically and morally
unacceptable in this day and age. The move came as something of a
surprise because, among the five finalists announced to the public,
“Fighting Poets” was widely expected to get the nod. A few trustees,
gathered for cocktails in the elegant and dimly lit bar of the Lord Jeffery Inn (spoiler: yes, it’s
ironic, but that name isn’t changing yet), late Friday night spoke on
condition of anonymity about the process that had just concluded.

The figure of Lord Jeffery Amherst, after whom the college’s sports
team—the “Lord Jeffs”—was named, is no stranger to controversy on campus and beyond.
In this case, the issue was not a symbol that appropriated Native
American culture, and instead, one associated with its destruction. As
almost every Amherst resident and Amherst College student soon comes to
learn, Amherst sought to exterminate Native Americans (“this execrable
race”) during the “French and Indian War” through an early form of
biological warfare by giving them smallpox-infested blankets.

For a long time his ubiquitous emblematic presence caused the administration no
discomfort. The College commissioned elegant representations of him on
“collectible” Wedgwood china.

Wedgwood plate on display in the library of Lord Jeffery Inn

a great way to start your day: old Amherst College dinnerware

And as late as the 1960s, a stylized
depiction of Lord Jeff hunting down Indians was considered a
light-hearted scene with which to greet the young WASP males of the “One
Percent” as they began their day in the dining commons.

That
dinnerware was in the meantime quietly removed, but the presence of Lord
Jeff as sports mascot remained. When students of color and their allies
rose up in protest in the fall of 2015, he became an obvious target.

“Valley Hawks” (“would reflect pride in the campus bird sanctuary and the college’s other connections to avian studies”)

"Wolves" (“Known for their keen senses, intelligence and power, wolves
collaborate and care for one another in packs, but they can also
represent individuality and independence")

Trustee Coup? “Fighting Poets” or not “Fighting Poets”: that was the question

Some of the 2045 suggestions were easy to reject for one reason or
another. For example, although “Hamsters” was considered clever by some
because Hamster is an anagram of Amherst, it is also the nickname of
students at nearby Hampshire College. “A’s” was unimaginative. And
“Pride” was just plain mystifying. A younger left-leaning trustee
provided particular insight into the deliberations. In his view, it was
much like the Trump White House: characterized by chaos and infighting.

Still, as trustees weighed the choice, doubts arose. To begin with, none
was really familiar with poetry. A few thought they had encountered
Frost or Dickinson in a freshman English class but could not recall much
else. Some remembered having seen Richard Wilbur at a dinner and admiring
his tweed jacket. “Too bad that Joyce Kilmer didn’t go to Amherst,” one
elderly gentleman mused over a Bone Dry Sapphire Gin Martini. “I really
liked that poem about trees. But we didn’t let girls in back then.” “Wilbur who?” asked another. “Wasn’t he the guy on that show with
the talking horse?” he snorted, as he took a sip from his third Macallan
18 Year Old Sherry Oak 1992.

A more politically aware younger trustee raised doubts even about Robert
Frost: the poet came from a racist white nationalist family and was
named for Robert E. Lee. His official biographer described him as (in the words of a reviewer) “a nasty piece of work, cruel to his family, dismissive and
contemptuous of other writers, a liar and a manipulator.” The same
reviewer summarized a fictional portrait of the poet by Joyce Carol
Oates as: “racist, sexist, loathsome, bullying.” “’Fighting poets’?!”
the trustee asked with some exasperation. “For the Confederacy? Against
women? It would be worse than ironic if, after the anti-racist protests
on campus, we picked this guy. Just what kind of message are we
sending?!”

“Besides,” another worried, “we might just be opening
ourselves up to ridicule. “What are our boys going to yell when these
‘Fighting Poets’ take to the gridiron? You know that Haverford College
football cheer: ‘Kill, Quakers, Kill!’ Come on. It’s the worst of both
worlds.”

Purple and White Privilege: we’re the trustees and can do pretty much what we want

A group of more traditionally minded trustees therefore tried to come up
with an alternative. When asked how they could circumvent the choices
developed through an open public process, one who works in corporate law
replied that it was perfectly legitimate, in the spirit if not the
letter of the charge: “After all, you folks in town did the same thing:
you held a flag contest calling for designs based on the theme of ‘the book and the plow’—which, I’ll have you know, was the invention of an Amherst College professor—and then chose the book and three sheaves of grain—even though they’re not a plow and no one ever grew
wheat in Amherst. Sauce for the gander, you know. Anyway: we’re
the trustees and can do pretty much what we want.”

“So: you’re dumping a guy who wanted to poison Indians but didn’t
actually manage to do so—and replacing him with a guy who put loyal
Americans in prison—and let German war criminals out? Bright move.”
Besides, he added with a wink, “Just think about the nicknames: If the
Lord Jeffs are known as ‘the Jeffs,’ then the ‘John McCloys’ would be
known as ‘the Johns.’ I. Don’t. Think. So. Look, if you guys aren’t
going to take the need for social change seriously, why don’t you just
be done with it and call the team “Purple and White Privilege?”

Ironically, although he spoke those words with bitter sarcasm, they
broke the logjam. The trustees began to think in concert about how to
spin or improve upon the five final options. It was thus that they hit
upon the idea of casting aside the generic “fighting poets” and singling
out Emily Dickinson. It was an easy choice and a unifying one. For
those on the left, it was thinking outside the box and a means to
underscore the College’s commitment to diversity and modern values. For
the conservatives, it was a cynical, cost-free choice. The Lord Jeff
mascot was a clear liability, easily thrown off the back of the sleigh
to appease the wolves. Choosing a woman as emblem would also help to
distract attention from damaging news reports concerning an aggressive
masculine sports ethos, ranging from rape culture
to racist and misogynistic e-mail exchanges. Above and beyond that, the move would secure the future of athletics at
Amherst. It is an open secret that, when the trustees reluctantly
accepted former President Tony Marx’s demand for emphasis on greater
ethnic and racial diversity, the quid pro quo was increased financial
support for the sports teams. Was it only a coincidence that, when the
trustees selected the first woman president as his successor, they chose
Biddy Martin, a self-described “crazed sports fan”? The choice of Emily Dickinson as mascot thus hit the trifecta, solving
numerous problems at once, changing things without really changing
things.

even on March 31, search
engines still show the description of the team under its old moniker

Early Reaction

Discreetly presented with the breaking news on Friday evening in the bar of the
Lord Jeff, one professor of English sitting nearby looked up from her
Chocolate Appletini and said, “Wow, that’s really disruptive!”
“Transgressive, even!” chimed in her colleague from comp lit, giggling
slightly as she took a sip from her squid-ink-garnished Firenze-Palermo
cocktail. A member of the Hampshire College faculty known to be well
versed in both academic and town politics happened to be at the bar, as well:
“You know if I were conspiratorially minded—which I’m not: only idiots
believe in conspiracy theories—I’d say that this was a cunning plan by
the Emily Dickinson Museum to get the College finally to pay attention
to its most valuable cultural resource. Everyone knows that, even though
Biddy Martin was trained in literature, she has never really shown much interest in the Museum. She’s set foot there like, what: once in her life?
But she always has time to go to a football game or tweet about sports.

With teams named after Emily Dickinson, she’d finally have to pay
attention. It’s absolutely brilliant.” With that, he returned to his
Vieux Carré and discussion of the upcoming Town Meeting with his two
female companions.

Jeff, John, Dick, and Harried

Reached via telephone on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the
Amherst College Office of Communications said that President Martin, on
her way out of town for a full weekend of men’s tennis matches at Tufts,
both women’s and men’s lacrosse at Middlebury, and women’s outdoor
track and field at the Tufts Snowflake Invitational, would not be
available for comment until late next week or whenever there is a break
in the College’s sports schedule.

We pointed out that, although the choice of mascot was bold, there was
one fly in the ointment. If the “Lord Jeffs” had been known as “the
Jeffs,” then the “Emily Dickinsons” might come to be popularly referred
to as "The Emilys"--or: “The Dicks.”

There was a brief but painful silence on the other end of the phone
line. “Oh.” Pause. “We hadn’t thought of that. Boy, is our face red.”
Another pause. “I’ll have to get back to you on that. First, I’ve got to
check my calendar. Remind me: what day is this?”

Monday, January 2, 2017

This is a sentimental old favorite from my collection: nothing special
in itself, just an old greeting card from Czechoslovakia that I
inherited from my father. The winter scene depicts Prague Castle and St.
Vitus' Cathedral viewed from the hill of Strahov Monastery, circa 1930.

• Not to be outdone, Charles Nevin in the New York Times made a foray as far back as 75,000 years about but drew most of his examples from the last two millennia (give or take): "2016: Worst. Year. Ever?"

Still, I won't miss 2016.

Not nearly as bad as 1916 or 1816 or many another year I could think of: You think you had it rough? what about 1941? 1348? But it's the lousy year we've had to deal with, so: good riddance. You can't be gone too soon for me.

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To Find the Principles:

Reflections on historical scholarship and the use and abuse of history in public life and popular culture. (Particularly egregious examples of the latter will earn a stern rebuke; ratings system of appropriate opprobrium at the bottom of this page.)

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On the first anniversary of the creation of the Empire, Napoleon won "the greatest battle of [his] career" when he defeated the f...

Ratings of topics featured (appropriate opprobrium)

(1) What were they thinking?! (2) Very bad! (3) Nauseating!

Note: The numbers do not necessarily imply a sequential ranking, though the helpful canine in # 2 is the most useful and generally applicable icon, capable of expressing reaction to a multitude of sins that may occasion some of the head-shaking amazement represented by # 1, yet fall short of the moral repugnance represented by # 3.